HIVE OPEN MIC Week 124 (Theme: Moonshine): Cover Song "Moonshiner" (Traditional / Bob Dylan)

Hello everybody on HIVE and especially the HIVE Open Mic Community! My name is Jasper and I'm from Cape Town, South Africa.

This is my first entry for Hive Open Mic as I am quite new to HIVE.

In the first two and half minutes of the video, I explain that moonshine doesn't just mean the light shining off the moon, it is also American slang for hard liquor that has been made illegally. This was especially prevalent in the Prohibition era of the 19020s when alcohol was completely illegal in the USA. They called it moonshine because they would make it at night, hiding in the woods somewhere, to avoid getting caught!

A hundred years later, when covid started, the South African government decided to ban the sale of alcohol. I think they thought this would reduce parties where people would congragate together without mask and spread the virus. Of course, this didn't work very well as people would make home-made pinapple beer or even their own moonshine whiskey, like a friend of mine!

I also explain that I'm wearing a cowboy hat to get in the mood, and that I've used prestik to mute my guitar strings to make it sound a bit more like a banjo!

The song is "Moonshiner" - it's a traditional song, but the version I know well is by Bob Dylan when he was very young:

Lyrics:

I've been a moonshiner, for many a long year
I've spent all my money, on whisky and beer
I go to some hollow, and set up my still (A still is the apparatus for distilling alcohol)
And if whisky don't kill me, I don't know what will

I go to some bar-room, and drink with my friends
Where the women don't follow, to see what I spend
God Bless them, pretty women, I wish they was mine...
With their breath as sweet as dew of the vine (my sweet moonshine)

Give me food when I'm hungry, give me drink when I'm dry
Throw me a dollar when I'm hard up, religion... when I die!
The whole world is a bottle, and life is but a dram (A dram is a small amount of alcohol)
When the bottle gets empty, it sure ain't worth a damn (it sure ain't worth a damn)...

So yes, quite a sobering sad song about the life of an old alcoholic... I hope you enjoy my version!